The Undercover Policing Inquiry reveals that the UK intelligence agencies targeted politically active school children.
Evidence to the Tranche One hearings showed that the Special Demonstration Squad routinely submitted reports on groups that had young members. These included the Schools Action Union (SAU), National Union of School Students (NUSS), Rebel and School Kids Against the Nazis (SKAN).
In UK law, those under 18 are classified as children or minors. Therefore, spying on those under the age of majority ought to have attracted caution from those authorising or carrying out such surveillance.
However, the significant amount of disclosure published by the Inquiry that included reports on the activities and personal data of children shows this was not the case with the SDS, whose reporting even touched on private family matters. Asked about this during the Inquiry, SDS officers said they received no guidance on reporting on school children.
Rather, because the SDS undercovers reported on every individual they encountered during their deployments, they gave no more consideration to the rights of minors than to those of anyone else they spied on.
Former officers commented that managers expressed no concerns about this aspect of their surveillance. This was something managers confirmed during their own oral testimony. As well as Special Branch’s own propensity for monitoring anyone on the left engaged in protest of any form, MI5’s interest in ‘subversion’ in educational institutions played a substantial role in fueling SDS surveillance.
Note, this piece does not address the issue of undercovers’ surveillance mentioning children of activists by name when reporting on their parents.
MI5’s interest in ‘subversion’ in educational establishments, including schools, is one reason that the SDS reported on children. In 1972, MI5 assessed that the Schools Action Union (SAU) exerted a ‘subversive influence’ on school children. The security service also highlighted that the bookshop Banner Books attempted to ‘question the educational system in general’.
Both Banner Books and the SAU were reported on by the SDS.
In 1975, MI5 sent a letter to all chief constables titled ‘Subversion in Schools’. MI5 requested information about staff members, who might be using ‘their position for subversive purposes’ but also about pupils active in organisations such as the National Union for School Students, a successor organisation to the SAU. Although the letter is careful to avoid suggesting that police forces obtain information directly from schools, it leaves no doubt that MI5 was interested in information on minors.
As the SDS reported on every politically active group and individual its officers encountered, making no assessment of whether this was valid, reporting on minors may have resulted from this extremely loose approach rather than from specific policy. However, it is clear that specific information requests were communicated from MI5 to the SDS requesting information on groups that included members aged under 18. These are discussed below.
The Schools Action Union (SAU) was a children-led movement advocating, between 1969 and 1974, for the abolition of corporal punishment and for all schools to become comprehensive and co-educational. It organised significant school strikes in May 1972.
Although just five Special Branch reports in the Inquiry’s disclosure mention this group, it is significant that the SDS annual report in 1971 highlights that it received information on the SAU. The 1972 annual report also names the SAU on the list of groups penetrated.
Between 1971 and 1972, HN348 ‘Sandra Davies’ had access to the SAU, as members of that group also attended meetings of her principal targets, the Women’s Liberation Front (WLF) and its sucessor organisation the Revolutionary Women’s Union (RWU).
For instance, a report mentions that a WLF study group meeting on 29 July 1971 had five female members of the SAU present, and that two attended a later meeting on 2 September 1971.
SAU members are also mentioned in this report, having attended a WLF meeting on 22 September 1971, where a demo is discussed. There is a further mention in a report on a WLF meeting at the Skegness Women’s Liberation conference of October 1971.
The only report that gives any substantive details on the activity of the SAU is a report on the school strike, which took place on 5 May 1972. As well as estimating the numbers, the report said that the strike was manipulated and organised by adults – predominantly from Maoist groups, including the RWU.
On 11 May 1972, Davies submitted a report identifying an 18-year-old boy interested in joining the SAU, giving considerable background on him, particularly his previous involvement in the Welsh Language Society and association with ‘extremist members’ of that group.
In May 1973, after the end of her deployment and in response to a request for information, Davies provided a brief but fairly detailed description of an 18-year-old girl who had joined the London Alliance and RWU, which included information on her activity while a school child involved in the SAU.
Asked during the Inquiry hearings whether managers authorised reporting on children, Davies said:
Well, if I’ve submitted this report, it would have been to my senior officer. I would have had a meeting with him, and if… if he didn’t want to submit it, he would have told me at the time.
Two other officers reported on the SAU; HN45 ‘Dave Robertson’ and HN343 ‘John Clinton’.
Other SDS undercovers deployed in the early and mid-1970s, HN298 ‘Michael Scott’ , HN303 ‘Peter Collins’ and HN301 ‘Bob Stubbs’ , also reported on children.
One report wholly concerned a 16-year-old schoolgirl attending Workers Revolutionary Party demos. HN296 ‘Geoff Wallace' also mentioned that students from Chiswick Comprehensive volunteered to organise a Right to Work meeting at school on 29 January 1976.
HN304 ‘Graham Coates’ also reported on the International Socialists youth movement, which was later called Rebel. In one report, dated 6 November 1976, Coates mentioned that one member of Islington International Socialists (IS) is ‘still at school and lives with his parents near King’s Cross Station’.
Coates commented in his written statement that:
No consideration was given to reporting on children, and I received no advice on this subject from the SDS managers. I do not think anyone would have thought it strange to report on an adolescent at the time, although I suppose it might be thought more sensitive these days.
One report on 13 March 1978, by HN354 ‘Vince Harvey’ , recorded the address and telephone number of a member of Walthamstow branch of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and noted that she attended Waltham Forest High School for Girls.
Harvey discussed this and other similar reports in his written statement:
I drafted this report, and others that mentioned children, because the SWP had two youth movements that generated considerable support. It was important that SB and the Security Service knew of the impact of these groups. If it was inappropriate or not useful, then I would expect the office to destroy it and/or not disseminate it. I cannot recall any training, guidance, or instruction on reporting on children. The fact that the report has survived is indicative of it being of use to some person.
HN80 ‘Colin Clark’ , HN96 ‘Michael James’ and HN155 ‘Phil Cooper’ targeted the Socialist Workers Party between 1977 and 1983 and reported on teenagers involved in SWP-related groups such as the National Union of School Students and Rebel. However, one group connected with the SWP attracted special attention from the SDS.
School Kids Against the Nazis (SKAN) was an anti-fascist group, set up to respond to the violent threat from the National Front (NF) in the late 1970s – specifically, NF attempts to target schools and what fascists called ‘red teachers’.
The 1978 SDS Annual Report discusses why SKAN was formed, stating that it was inspired by the racist policing of counter-fascist demos – following an NF demo and counter-protest where police arrested only black youths:
This gave good impetus to the formation of SKAN as a youth anti-Nazi group and it has since been adopted and promoted nationally.
A report by Vince Harvey, dated 3 January 1979, mentions the group and names a pupil at a Walthamstow school.
The undercover officer HN126 ‘Paul Gray’ seems to have reported most extensively on children during the Tranche One period. Gray filed at least 22 reports on under-18s while infiltrating the Socialist Workers Party, including several on SKAN.
Gray’s deployment lasted four years between 1978 and 1982. He defended spying on SKAN:
Although SKAN’s members were young, they were just as violent as any other anti-fascist group. [[Privacy]], who led the group, had (as I have already said) a lengthy criminal record for violence at demonstrations. SKAN would regularly attend demonstrations and get into fights.
A youth disco for SKAN members was organised at Shepherd’s Bush Labour Party rooms after a meeting on 22 April 1978. Although Gray reported on this, it is not clear whether he attended the school-age disco.
Another report originally featured a photo of a ‘schoolboy who is an active member of SKAN, Finchley SWP, Rebel and National Union of School Students’. The report added that the boy was of ‘effeminate appearance’.
Gray reported on 27 June 1979 that a politically active teenager had been thrown out of his house after a fight with his brother. It is unclear what intelligence value this information could have had, even considering MI5’s broad interests.
Information in one report by Gray more obviously fits the terms expressed in the MI5 memo on subversive influences in schools. Gray’s report says that a child received the SWP newspaper and ‘is under the influence of two teachers at his school’, who were also members of the SWP.
SDS manager HN307 Trevor Butler said that despite the large number of reports by undercover officers on youth activists, the groups concerned, including SKAN, were ‘not penetrated directly’ but only via ‘related adult groups’. He went on to say:
Furthermore, I doubt these groups were formed or directed by children as such and expect that they were fronts for or puppets of other far left-wing groups using children to further their own agendas.
Another SDS senior officer, HN244 Angus McIntosh expressed similar views in his written statement. Detective inspector HN34 Geoff Craft saw no particular ‘sensitivities’ about spying on children, echoing the recollection of undercover officers such as HN304 ‘Graham Coates’.
In 1979, during Gray’s deployment, MI5 met with another SDS manager, detective inspector HN135 Mike Ferguson , and asked for information on SKAN and other youth groups. Later requests from MI5, specifically on the supposed threat that teenage activists presented, are recorded in 1981 and 1983.
For instance, in a record of a meeting with MI5, dated 1 January 1983, the security service requested information from the SDS about the School Stoppers Text-Book and information about the Anarchist Youth Federation.
In written statements submitted at the end of Tranche One , lawyers on behalf of non-state core participants suggested there were two reasons why the SDS spied on those aged under 18.
Foremost was the influence of MI5. Second was the lack of guardrails on who the SDS spied on; all information undercover officers came across was recorded. The lack of concern about the nature of reporting expressed at the time and the subsequent testimony of the managers to the Inquiry supports this being the case. Through this lens, left-wing children were as legitimate a target as any individual for police surveillance.